“A Comparative Study of the Use of Visual Communicative Signals in Interactions Between Dogs (Canis Familiaris) and Humans and Cats (Felis Catus) and Humans”, 2005-05-01 (; backlinks):
Dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and cats’ (Felis catus) interspecific communicative behavior toward humans was investigated.
In Experiment 1, the ability of dogs and cats to use human pointing gestures in an object-choice task was compared using 4 types of pointing cues differing in distance between the signaled object and the end of the fingertip and in visibility duration of the given signal.
Using these gestures, both dogs and cats were able to find the hidden food; there was no statistically-significant difference in their performance.
In Experiment 2, the hidden food was made inaccessible to the subjects to determine whether they could indicate the place of the hidden food to a naive owner.
Cats lacked some components of attention-getting behavior compared with dogs.
The results suggest that individual familiarization with pointing gestures ensures high-level performance in the presence of such gestures; however, species-specific differences could cause differences in signaling toward the human.
See Also:
“Assessing cats’ (Felis catus) sensitivity to human pointing gestures”
“Did we find a copycat? ‘Do as I Do’ in a domestic cat (Felis catus)”
“Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice”
“The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat-human communication”
“Humans can identify cats’ affective states from subtle facial expressions”